Craft Supplies

Yarn in the 1940s Home

The best things you see on holiday are those you stumble across unexpectedly. While waiting for a museum tour to start, I was wandering around the Liverpool waterfront and came across a sign saying ‘Experience life in a Wartime House’.

Looks exciting, right?

Set up in an old Piermaster’s building, the exhibition ‘did what it said on the tin’ and was set up to display home life in 1940s Liverpool.

In the first room was this:

All the home knitting goodness.

Isn’t it great?

It shows the act – not just the result – of Mend and Make Do. A cardigan is being unravelled, and the same yarn has been used to make knitted face cloths and a crocheted pot stand (or at least I think it’s a pot stand).

See? Unravelling!

Us crafters can look at an object, say a colourwork jumper, and understand that it is made from other knitted objects and leftovers from other projects. But to the uninitiated. it must be hard to imagine.

In the lounge, a knitting bag sat on a settee, while a cosy adorned the tea pot in the kitchen. Brilliant examples of the importance of yarn and craft to the 1940s home.